TOUCHSCREEN ACCESSIBILITY: FROM TABLETS TO SMARTWATCHES
Tiago Guerreiro, Hugo Nicolau
LaSIGE, Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal
[email protected], [email protected]
Abstract
Enabling access to a computing device is likely to have a huge impact in the quality of
life of a person. Every once in a while, new technologies are devised and impact the way
we communicate, work and even, how we have fun. Paradigmatically, it is often the
case that a new technology empowers the general able-bodied user and fosters
exclusion of people with disabilities. The emergence of touch-based smartphones as
the de facto mobile interaction gadget created a gap between those that were able to
use the device as it was deployed in the market and those that were not able to do so.
The potential usages of these devices exploded and users that were at that time able to
use mobile phones with physical keypads similarly to their peers, saw themselves living
in the past of mobile interaction, from one day to the other. This was the case of blind
people when smartphones started to dominate the market circa 2007.
It is not a surprise that the inclusion of VoiceOver as a built-in accessibility feature in the
IPhone 3GS version is a major turning point in the recent history of accessible
computing. At the time, when it was launched in 2009, smartphones were already
established as a person’s handheld computer, way beyond a simple communication
tool, and had an impact in people’s lives that could not be overseen. Apple
democratized access to smartphones and the others followed, always a little behind.
Researchers focused, for the following years, mostly on understanding the impact of
the built-in accessibility features and enabling or improving specific tasks and
applications, but generally accepting the VoiceOver modus operandi. This research was
carried mostly in the laboratory limiting the understanding of the integration of these
gadgets in one’s life, particularly to what respects the relationship with peers.
Our research has mostly focused in understanding the benefits and flaws of modern
touchscreen technology and how it can be improved for people with different abilities.
In this sense, we have studied how blind and visually impaired people learn and interact
with touchscreen devices being able to identify the major barriers in the adoption of
this technology. Furthermore, we have focused on challenging tasks, like text-entry,
seeking to provide alternatives that fits the users’ needs. From gesture-based textentry to Braille input, from tablets to smartwatches, in this communication we will start
by presenting the methods and results achieved in these studies [1,2,3,4].
Besides the tools and applications paraphernalia that came along with these new
devices, another reason to adopt them lingered: social acceptance. Feature phones
became obsolete and, despite their recognized higher accessibility, became socially
undesirable. There are a number of online testimonials and videos on the benefits and
proficiency of using a modern touch phone. On the other hand, little is known about the
learning process of this new technology and, once again, what these users lost in their
transition from older to newer devices and how long it took for them to regain a similar
level of control over these new tools [5]. Anecdotally, we have observed blind people
that learned to manoeuvre them, feel victorious and proud, and, looking back, see a
great evolution from the smartphone early days, when these were inaccessible to them.
Compared to other challenges they faced in their lives, this is likely to be a minor one.
A side effect of this generalized idea (users, manufacturers, and society) that
smartphones are now fully accessible and that, in the particular case of blind people,
they have regained the control they once had with their feature phones, is that relevant
layers beyond physical access to the device and its contents are overlooked.
In this communication, we will also focus on the shortcomings of current mobile devices
in the social arena. Particularly, we motivate and present work in the areas of security
and privacy, inconspicuous interaction, and social context awareness [6,7,8,9]. With the
emergence of new technologies it is relevant to keep in mind that enabling physical
access is not enough as social aspects need to be guaranteed. These layers beyond
access need to be pursued and added until we are able to state that people with
disabilities stand in par with others in social contexts.
References
1. João Oliveira, Tiago Guerreiro, Hugo Nicolau, Joaquim Jorge, and Daniel Gonçalves. 2011.
Blind people and mobile touch-based text-entry: acknowledging the need for different
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